Loomis preps for Creek Week

Michael Kirby/Gold Country News ServiceLoomis Councilman Walt Scherer reviews plans for Creek Week activities coming up Saturday with Jennifer Knisley and her daughter Emily. Knisley serves on the town’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space Committee. The site of the planned tree planting, creek clean-up and nature walk is the new Heritage Park, located at the end of South Walnut Street.

Loomis goes green the next two weekends, as it observes Creek Week this Saturday and Earth Day on April 24.
Creek Week activities on April 17 will take place at Heritage Park, the second phase of the defunct subdivision site the Town of Loomis recently purchased for $350,000.
Located at the end of South Walnut Street, the 10-acre property includes open space and a pond.
“The property we’re dealing with is the old Doc Barnes Christmas Tree Farm … it burned in the late ’80s,” said Loomis Councilman Walt Scherer.
“There were a lot of trees there at one time. There are no trees there today,” he said.
Scherer is spearheading the town’s efforts, and working with the Sacramento Tree Foundation, to plant more than 100 trees at the park.
Volunteers are needed to help plant 10 trees on Saturday and to sign up for the larger tree planting in the fall. Help is also needed to clean up the creek — a tributary of Antelope Creek — that flows through the park.
At 9 a.m., naturalist Shawna Martinez will lead a nature walk at the site. The clean-up starts at 10 a.m., and the tree planting ends the day’s festivities, Scherer said.
“There’s a beautiful pond, it’s an incredibly well-located site for the people in the neighborhoods to visit,” Scherer said.
Devin Cooper has lived in the nearby Heritage Park Estates for almost five years.
Cooper said he’s in “favor of the park,” but he does have questions and concerns about the size of the park and how it will be maintained and patrolled, as well as where funding will come from.
“How do we make sure it’s not just a late-night hangout place?” Cooper said.
Those are questions yet to be answered by the town council. Scherer said that while part of subdivision property will be a park, the rest will be probably be a subdivision.
“That’s a decision that future councils are going to make,” he said.
The Earth Day celebration begins at 7 p.m. Friday, April 23, with the screening of seven short movies during the free Earth Day Family Night at the Loomis Depot.
The next day, the depot will be a hub of activity with a yard sale that runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the parking lot.
Information, vendor and educational booths and displays will be open from 12 to 4 p.m. Entertainment will also be provided throughout the afternoon, and short environmental films will be screened from 1 to 3 p.m. All the activities, including horse and wagon rides, are free to all.
Tours of the new town hall will also be given from 12 to 4 p.m.
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CREEK WEEK ACTIVITIES AT HERITAGE PARK
9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, April 17
Nature walk with naturalist Shawna Martinez, native tree planting, and Creek clean-up at Heritage Park site, at the end of S. Walnut Street
EARTH DAY CELEBRATION AT LOOMIS DEPOT, April 23 and 24
7 to 10 p.m. Friday, April 23: Screening of seven short films –- The Story of Stuff, A Chemical Reaction, Trashed, Zero Waste, Synthetic Sea, A Simple Question, Pollen Nation, Friday at the Farm
Saturday, April 24
8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Yard Sale in the parking lot
12 to 4 p.m.: Exhibits on both sides of the Depot. Free horse and wagon rides
12 to 12:45 p.m.: Music by the casts of "Fame,” "Jungle Book,” and "Thoroughly Modern Millie,” courtesy of McLaughlin Music Studio
1 to 1:45 p.m.: The Station Pickers Bluegrass Band
2 to 2:30 p.m.: George Schafer, easy listening
2:45 to 4 p.m.: Jump Start jazz band
1 to 3 p.m.: Short films inside the Depot building – “Trashed,” about where trash really goes; “A Chemical Reaction,” about lawn and garden chemicals; “Zero Waste,” about waste elimination goals; “Synthetic Sea,” about plastic waste in the ocean; “A Simple Question,” about kids restoring a creek; “Pollen Nation,” about threats to bees
12 to 4 p.m.: Talks and lectures: Sustainable living, options for /Solar Systems, mPower, zero waste, buying local food, water catchments, bicycles and kayaks, innovative lighting, Placer sustain, backyard chickens, natural pest control
12:30 to 2 p.m.: Meet "Eat Local" advocate Joanne Neft, author the newly released cookbook, "Real Food"
12 to 4 p.m.: Tours of new Town Hall, on Taylor Road near the depot. See the historic, restored bank building, and how it now works as the new town hall
.